36 min listen
Radiolab: Worst. Year. Ever
FromThroughline
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Length:
39 minutes
Released:
Mar 19, 2024
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
What was the worst year to be alive on planet Earth? We make the case for 536 AD, which set off a cascade of catastrophes that is almost too horrible to imagine. A supervolcano. The disappearance of shadows. A failure of bread. Plague rats. Using evidence painstakingly gathered around the world - from Mongolian tree rings to Greenlandic ice cores to Mayan artifacts - we paint a portrait of what scientists and historians think went wrong, and what we think it felt like to be there in real time. (Spoiler: not so hot.) We hear a hymn for the dead from the ancient kingdom of Axum, the closest we can get to the sound of grief from a millennium and a half ago.The horrors of 536 make us wonder about the parallels and perpendiculars with our own time: does it make you feel any better knowing that your suffering is part of a global crisis? Or does it just make things worse?" This week we're sharing a bonus episode from Radiolab: Worst. Year. Ever. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Released:
Mar 19, 2024
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Four Days in August: This week we look back at four days in August 1953, when the CIA orchestrated a coup of Iran's elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. by Throughline